Quick check on hives number 1 and 3 to confirm queen cell production.

Hive #1
A few days ago I added another frame of brood and eggs from hive #2 to give the bees another chance to raise a queen. To my surprise, the girls took the chance and there were 4 queen cells hanging off various points of the brood frame I put in. Good news.

Hive # 3 – Nuc #1 Split
Hive 3 still has a ton of bees in it. Much more than I would have expected at this point since they’re quenless. Checking for cells I found 7 well-formed cells on two different frames. I decided to split off a nuc. I pulled one of the frames with the queen cells, a frame of honey, frame of pollin, and another empty frame of drawn comb from last year. All went into a 5 frame nuc with a frame feeder, 2:1 syrup, and Megabee. (This will be Nuc # 1 going forward.) I placed the nuc on top of the parent hive and faced it the opposite direction.
I would have been able to split another nuc off one of #1′s queen cells, but I’m out of nuc boxes right now. I have one more, but it’s being painted.

Crappy weather today for opening a hive, but it’s supposed to be heavy rain for the next 4 days or so and that’s too long to go just after splitting the hives to not check on them.

Hive 1 is a single deep with a frame feeder. Crappy weather kept all the foragers indoors so the box was packed with bees. No shortage of pollen or stored syrup. Too early for that much honey to be in there. Unable to find queen or any sign of queen activity. No brood left and no queen cells either. Come on, girls – get with it! Moved frame of brood from Hive 2 which was a mix of eggs, young larvae and sealed brood.

Hive 2 is a single deep with Frame feeder and is the other half of the Hive 1 split. Found the queen and copious amounts of pollen, stored honey, and brood. The queen is very young – about 2 thirds the size of a normal queen but obviously not intimidated by her diminutive stature. The brood pattern looked pretty solid.

Hive 3 is a single deep with a medium super on top. This hive has generous amounts of stored honey and pollen – so there is no feeder on it at present. There is no queen in this hive (she was discovered in Hive 4), but the bees have built and sealed a few queen cells, so things are coming along according to plan.

Hive 4 is the other half of the split that created Hive 3. I was able to find the queen easily in this one. She is a mature queen, large and solid orange – almost like a hornet. She really stands out amongst her smaller and much browner daughters. The brood nest is filled with eggs and brood in various stages. Pollen and honey stores look good. No cause to worry with this one right now.

I’m going to keep an eye on the queen cells. The opportunity may present itself to do a 2 or 3 frame split with a nuc or two if I can salvage some viable queen cells. We’ll see.

The third and very late BubbaCast. My apologies, folks.

I’ve got a horse for sale, give a shoutout to Darcy at nkybeeker.com and talk about making splits.

Music: James Larson

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Bubbacast # 3 [ 34:19 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The NAIS legislation sounds great on the surface, but is incredibly detrimental to America’s agriculture and ultimately to the American consumer. Enough is enough already.

Check out www.NoNais.org for additional information and Get Involved

-Brian

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From: http://nonais.org/but-what-is-nais/

The USDA’s proposed National Animal Identification System (NAIS) was originally designed to give the big beef producers help in getting export markets which required disease controls. The idea is that every single livestock animal in the United States will be identified and tagged. All livestock animal movements will be tracked, logged and reported to the government. The benefit is to the big factory farms who probably do need this type of regulation. They get to do single ID’s for large groups of animals. Small farmers, pet owners and homesteaders will have to tag and track every single animal.

There are no exceptions – even small farms that sell direct to local consumers will be required to pay the fees and file all the paper work on all their animals. Even horse, llama and other pet owners will be required to participate in NAIS. Homesteaders who raise their own meat and grandma with her one egg hen will also have to register their homes as ‘farm premises’ and obtain a Premise ID, tag all their animals and submit all the paperwork and fees. Absurd? Yes – There are no exceptions under the current NAIS plan. The USDA has slipped this plan in the back door without any legislation. This is going to be very expensive and guess who is going to pay for it in higher food prices… You!

Here’s a fun time-lapse video of the snow melting on my farm yesterday.

For someone thinking of becoming a new beekeeper, one of the putoffs is often price. The big suppliers like Dadant and Mann Lake offer startup kits, but they are usually pretty expensive. I came across a new vendor on the beesource forums that seems to have some nice stuff at some great pricing. For now it looks like they just do woodenware so you won’t be able to buy the whole kit and kaboodle, but you can save some money on your hive parts. I intend to make my next order with them.

Check it out:
http://www.orrbeesupply.web.officelive.com/